Like this:

Sitting outside watching for the twinkling lights, not of Christmas decorations, but rather the natural lights of the Geminid meteor shower didn’t result in the oohs and aahs I’d hoped for, but I can’t complain about the clear, star filled night sky.

And the time of quiet watching made me think about the stars and how others have described them.

“I am not going to die, I’m going home like a shooting star.” ~Sojourner Truth

“What is love? It is the morning and the evening star”. ~Sinclair Lewis

“Follow your own star!” ~Dante Alighieri

“If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years, how man would marvel and stare.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

In August 1979, I walked through these doors at Osceola Middle School to begin my career as a teacher, and this is the place where my husband will complete his final year as an educator.

Much has changed in education during this time, but much is still the same. As we begin another year, let us be inspired, motivated, and entertained by the words of others about teaching and education…one quote for every year of my teaching career.

A child without education is like a bird without wings. ~Tibetan proverb

A teacher’s job is to take a bunch of live wires and see that they are well-grounded. ~D. Martin

A mind when stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions. ~Author Unknown

The best way to predict your future is to create it. ~Abraham Lincoln

Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think. ~Albert Einstein

Modern cynics and skeptics…see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those whom they entrust their plumbing. ~John F. Kennedy

In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day’s work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe twenty years. ~Jacques Barzen

Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. ~John Dewey

Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel. ~Socrates

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. ~Albert Einstein

A good teacher is a master of simplification and an enemy of simplistic. ~Louis A. Berman

We expect teachers to handle teenage pregnancy, substance abuse, and the failings of the family. Then we expect them to educate our children. ~John Sculley

Teaching is more than imparting knowledge, it is inspiring change. Learning is more than absorbing facts, it is acquiring understanding.~William Arthur Ward

The principal goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done. ~Jean Piaget

The task of the modern educator is not to cut down the jungle but to water the desert. ~C.S. Lewis

Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world. ~Nelson Mandela

Discover wildlife: be a teacher! ~Author Unknown

What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul. ~Joseph Addison

Like this:

Friday, July 11th marks the birthday of one of my favorite authors, E.B. White. Born in 1899, his words both in the children’s books Stuart Little, Charlotte’s Web, and The Trumpet of the Swan as well as his writing for adults provide words of wisdom.

I wake every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.

Write about it by day. Dream about it by night.

Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.

We should all do, what in the long run, gives us joy.

Dissecting humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies from it.

Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than a whole one.

Life is like writing with a pen. You can cross out your past, but you can’t erase it.

One of the most time consuming things is to have an enemy.

Writing is both mask and unveiling.

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

I admire anyone who has the guts to write anything at all.

From Charlotte’s Web:

“Why did you do all this for me?” he asked. “I don’t deserve it. I’ve never done anything for you.” “You have been my friend,” replied Charlotte. “That in itself is a tremendous thing.”

By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.

It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.

From The Trumpet of the Swan:

Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom.

Perhaps you’d like to join me as I reread E.B. White’s children’s books or peruse a few of his essays.

I can’t remember when I’ve heard or seen so many quotes that made my scramble for paper and pencil. I thought I’d share what I thought were the best quotes of the week.

From Danielle Belton, editor at large of Clutch Magazine, in an interview on the NPR program, Tell Me More, in response to the Beyonce interview with Oprah this week:

I always think if my parents had been more Joe Jackson like and instead of like giving me books and saying you’re going to go to college…wait…you can sing, and write, and dance. We’ll slap some tap shoes on you and you’re going to make us some money.

Some of the guys were pessimists. They thought we were going to be killed and that they wouldn’t return our bodies to our families; but some of us were optimists. We thought they’d return our bodies after they killed us.

When I heard this quote attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte on the radio this week, it reminded me of how much I want those crazy badges on the Lose It app. You’d think losing the weight would be enough: